Oil tea trees light up the road to poverty alleviation in Tongcheng, Hubei

Jin Hewen, a poor household in Gebi Village, Tanghu Town, Tongcheng County, Hubei Province, is going through a “midlife crisis”: he has elderly parents who have been ill for years to support above him, and a pair of underage children below him, and the newly built two-story house has left him more than 100,000 yuan in debt. Yet in conversation with the reporter, the short-statured Jin Hewen kept a smile on his face, showing that the heavy family burden had not crushed him.

It turns out that under the targeted assistance of the local leading enterprise Hubei Huangpaoshan Green Products Co., Ltd., Jin Hewen not only solved his urgent needs by raising pigs, but also planted oil tea trees on his 13 mu of hilly land, with stable returns and promising prospects.

“Huangpaoshan Company not only provides technical guidance and exclusive sales, but also covers the costs during the investment period. Now that people's living standards have improved, the benefits of a green product like tea oil should not be bad.” Jin Hewen roughly calculated that in a few more years, when the oil tea trees bear fruit in abundance, he will be able to earn more than 10,000 yuan a year, and he will be able to enjoy stable benefits for decades thereafter.

Since 2010, Tongcheng County, located in the concentrated contiguous poverty-stricken area of the Mufu Mountain region in Hubei, has planted an average of 16,500 mu of new oil tea each year, thanks to the leadership and drive of local leading enterprises. Fang Dabing, general manager of Huangpaoshan Company, introduced that the company currently transfers more than 50,000 mu of farmers' forest land in the form of share cooperation, that is, the company invests all inputs as shares and farmers contribute forest land as shares, and after the trees bear fruit and generate benefits, the company and the village groups and farmers split the proceeds 60-40. In addition, with the company providing seedlings, technical services and exclusive sales agreements, farmers themselves cultivate and manage nearly another 50,000 mu.

In Tongcheng County, the reporter could see contiguous oil tea forests everywhere, lush and full of vitality. Almost every town here has an oil tea base, and every base benefits poor households.

With oil tea bases at their doorstep, some poor households are both workers and shareholders, and their basic livelihood is guaranteed. Jin Xunwang, an extremely poor household in Miaoxia Village, Sizhuang Township, Tongcheng County, is already over 60 years old, and both of his sons are intellectually disabled, making life very difficult. After the village developed the oil tea industry, in addition to contributing his own 7 mu of land as shares, Jin Xunwang also helps Huangpaoshan Company manage and maintain more than 90 mu of oil tea bases. Besides farming, he can also earn nearly 10,000 yuan from managing and maintaining the oil tea base and from dividends.

In the remote Daping Township, deep in the mountains, over the past two years the locality has cooperated with Huangpaoshan Company, a forestry investment company and Xinsanhui Company to build the 10,000-mu Yaogu Mountain oil tea base, which not only revitalized the village-level collective economy but also benefited a large number of poor households.

Hu Liang, director of Huadun Village in Daping Township, said the village has more than 2,000 mu of oil tea, and most of the management and maintenance staff hired are poor households. The annual wages for management, weeding and fertilizing are more than 300,000 yuan, and on average each poor household directly increases income by six to seven thousand yuan. After high yields come in 5 years, 1 mu of oil tea can also add 200 yuan per year in dividend income, and the living standards of the targeted poverty alleviation recipients will get better and better.

Today, the oil tea industry has become a sharp tool for local efforts to advance targeted poverty alleviation. Enterprises such as Huangpaoshan Company and the forestry investment company, as well as a number of specialized cooperatives and large growers, have stood out and driven batch after batch of poor households to ignite hope for escaping poverty. Wu Zhongzhi, deputy director of the Tongcheng County Forestry Bureau, said that at present, more than 100,000 mu of young oil tea forests in the county have been transferred to companies and large growers for nearly 100,000 mu, benefiting 4,000 poor households, about 18,000 people.